It doesn’t take a milestone moment or viral play for an NHL player’s phone to be flooded with post-game notifications. Maybe there’s a text from a parent, a reminder from a partner, a few words of congratulations or condolences. Not to mention the usual flood of emails and push notifications that inevitably pile up when you’re away from your phone for a few hours.
But these days, as sports betting becomes more prevalent in the hockey world, there’s a new app taking up space atop players’ home screens.
“I’ve gotten Venmo requests before,” said one NHL player The Athleticsaccording to the player survey. “Like, ‘Hey, I bet you guys win and you guys blew it. So give me my 50 dollars back. ”
That player said he thought it was ‘comical’.
“I think I’ve paid back one guy once,” he said, laughing. “I sent him twenty dollars.”
Of course, the Internet being what it is, it’s not always very funny. Nearly a third of the 161 players surveyed said they have received more harassing messages from fans since sports betting became legal in more states.
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“Oh, almost every day,” said one goaltender. “Honestly, I’d say 75 percent of them are angry about something. ‘How did you let in that late goal? I had the bottom. Thank you very much. You suck.” That kind of thing all the time. I have the feeling that as goalkeepers we are also exposed to it a little more.”
“Along with a few death threats and a few other things,” another player added.
Perhaps the greatest revelation of The Athletics‘s anonymous player poll was how common the Venmo requests are.
“These are demands, not requests,” one player clarified. “You owe me $200 because you were on the ice when…” and it’s insane. It’s really bad when you play Toronto because it seems like everyone is betting on Leafs games. But that’s Toronto for you.”
Apparently NHL players need to do a better job of masking their identities on cash apps.
“Yes, that’s real,” said another player. “If you screw up someone’s parlay or something? One hundred percent, that’s real. I have one last match where someone bets on my shot count or something, and then he DMs me, “You screwed up my parlay!” Excuse my language, but that’s what he said.”
“Yes, 100 percent,” said another player. “I’ve already received a lot of them in my inbox. Like I was stopping them from hitting a parlay or something, or, “Here’s my Venmo. Send me $100.”
“Oh yeah,” said one player. “People on social media are much crazier now because they have more skin in the game. I think that applies to all sports.”
“I get messages all the time, and these are people probably betting $1.50,” said another.
Some such requests are obvious jokes. But other messages have a more sinister tone.
“Not here, but to be honest, especially in Russia,” said one player. “Like it’s going crazy. You’re 2-0 up and you lose, you get messages like: ‘You son of a bitch, I’m going to kill you.’
One player said he receives at least one or two such messages from gamblers every day. But two-thirds of players who responded said they got nothing. It may depend on how high-profile a player is. There aren’t many fans betting on fourth-liners and third-pair defenders. As one player joked: “I don’t think I’m the betting favorite.”
Unsurprisingly, many players have gone out of their way to completely unplug. That could also explain the two-thirds who say they do not receive such messages.
“I used to know I was getting intimidating messages,” said one player. ‘Now I don’t know. Who would read these damn idiots? Not me anymore.”
“That’s why I turned everything off,” said another. “You get scary messages there.”
Another: “It’s a good thing I’m not on social media.”
Another: “No one can find me, so I don’t know.”
Apart from death threats and blasphemous rants, the players sometimes feel the pain of the gamblers.
“Sometimes they bet on me to score when I don’t, and they want me to give them money,” said one player. “I’m like, ‘I want to score too!'”
(Image: Meech Robinson / The Athleticswith photos by Gary A. Vasquez, Katherine Gawlik and Andre Ringuette / Getty Images)